The proliferation of pornography in the modern age has normalized both the act of sex and the choice to make it one’s primary profession. Almost all but the most conservative would agree that there is no longer any shame in selling one’s body for money, presumably because there are more opportunities than ever to do so. Sex is a hot (pun unfortunately intended) commodity – a ceaseless supply must therefore exist in order to keep up with demand.

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Becoming a sex worker is now seen, by an ever-increasing number of people, as a viable, non-judgment-inducing career choice, as benign as working in an office or at any other “straight” job. In the case of the Girlfriend Experience, Starz’s drama about the inner life of a high-class escort based on the Steven Soderbergh film of the same name, it’s a career choice made to facilitate the protagonist’s future profession.A financially struggling law school student, Christine (played by Riley Keough) discovers her classmate Avery is making ends meet (and then some) by providing a “girlfriend experience” to lonely middle-aged businessmen. Curious, Christine presses her for details.

“You’re hot, and smart, and funny,” Avery tells her matter-of-factly. “You just have to want to do it. I mean, I get off on it. I like the rush. All the attention, knowing he wants me. Then there’s the money. And at the end of the day, if I don’t get along with a client, I just move on. All you really have to do is listen and ask questions.”

“And fuck,” Christine adds.

“Yeah,” Avery says just as matter-of-factly. “And fuck.” The statement is made as clinically as any other job description.

The Girlfriend Experience generated positive reviews earlier this year; despite relatively low ratings, it has been picked up for a second season. It is not the only high-minded show about the behind-the-scenes lives of sex workers in the works. An episodic reboot of the 1980 film American Gigolo set in the present day (written by Neil LaBute and executive produced by Jerry Bruckheimer) is in development at Showtime, and The Deuce, an HBO show set in the porn industry of the 70s and 80s starring James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal and created by The Wire’s David Simon, is currently in production.

The fact that this seems to be a new trend in television speaks to our collective desire to understand the new normalcy that has been affixed to the world’s oldest profession. It’s more widely accepted, yes, but why is it? And what does it do to the people whose job it is to treat it like another day at the office?

Sex sells, and it always has. But now being woke sells, too. By humanizing these characters, by providing them with a rich inner life – and, therefore, a backstory to and a reason for all the fucking – we can justify watching them fuck. To merely objectify them, to ignore their personhood, would be construed as a form of sex shaming, opening us up as the potential subjects of scathing think pieces. The viewership of these new shows are not allergic to nuance; they possess the ability for complex thought and a desire to treat and investigate their minds as sexual organs.

It’s not the first time shows of this nature have been on the air. Hung, an HBO comedy about a single father monetizing his God-given gift of girth, lasted three seasons. The Secret Diary of a Call Girl, a British show, airing on Showtime, lasted four. Gigolos, another Showtime reality series about male escorts, lasted six. The difference between those shows and this current crop, however, is that they predated today’s more progressive sexual politics and instead reveled in the mere salaciousness of their subjects. They lacked the level of thoughtfulness, studiousness – really, borderline sociological examination – that shows now share. One can’t imagine David Simon, for example, creating a thoughtless compilation porn, a collection of scenes designed solely to appeal to base sexual desires, and leaving it at that.

The Girlfriend Experience is riddled with ennui and existential dread. There are many shots of Christine looking in the mirror, wordlessly asking herself the extent to which she is able to treat her new job as flippantly as her friend and clients do. We follow her – her face, her choice, her stoicism – throughout the series. She kisses her johns, fucks them, with her eyes open. Not looking at them, but staring into the middle distance. She tries to convince herself of the normalcy of her actions. Ultimately she succeeds, abandoning the reason why she took the side job in the first place for the monetary and power-fulfilling position she fell into. If she’s ultimately OK with it, I suppose we are as well. We are relieved by this. The new normal becomes even more so.